Savant
by Mademise
Summary: Kinkmeme fill. Mahou-shoujo AU multichap, T for Language, Insinuation and homoerotism.
1. Chapter 1

"You think you could give someone else a go at the telly, once in a while?" John asked, raising an eyebrow. Harry looked up at him from where she was curled tight on the couch, knees drawn up to her chest and fingers loosely twisted into themselves.

"You're welcome to join me," she said politely in the high-pitched little-girl voice that she adopted to annoy him, when the fancy struck. It didn't work very well these days; she broke into huskiness after a few words.

"Have you ever considered that we're not all interested in that… stuff?"

"What else would you be watching?" she asked of him, and her tone was scathing. "Fiction? This is _news_, John. This is the world we live in."

"It's as much of a lie as anything," he said. "It's marketing."

"At least it's honest about that," she sighed, and then she chucked the remote control at him. "Whatever. You can have it."

"Don't tell me you're off drinking," John said.

"I am just going to go meet Clara," Harry said irritably. "You know how she feels about the drinking."

"She and the rest of us," was John's answer. "Don't be out too late. You've still got school tomorrow."

"John," Harry said, "you do realize tomorrow's a screening-day, yeah? You honestly think I'd skip school?"

"What, you honestly think that you're going to be discovered as a _magical girl_ at your age?"

"You should really keep up with the news, John," Harry said as she packed her handbag, collecting its contents from where they were strewn about the mess that was the apartment. "They just discovered this boy, this savant, last month. He's your age. Miracles do occasionally happen."

"Yeah," John said. "Right. Say hi to Clara for me, will you?"

"Sure thing," Harry answered. "Make sure you behave, yeah? Wouldn't want you to miss the screening."

"Good-bye, Harry," John said, and he could hear his sister's laughter as she left.

Despite his previous objections, John didn't have a problem with the fusion of virtuality and truth that was broadcasted as current affairs – users of magic who battled against those that would harm the peace of the earth. Well, he did have a problem with it when he thought about the philosophy of it all, when he thought about how incredibly human it was to take that kind of a gift and turn it into a spectacle, but that didn't really take away the entertainment value of it. He'd become fond of it when he was bedridden for weeks after the Incident.

Even in a world mixed with the fantastic, people were desperate for heroes of some sort, any sort at all, and so there were screenings every month in case something nascent bloomed at an odd time, and so there were training camps for youth on a yearly basis. Harry loved them, pugilistic as she is, and John put up with them because they'd look good when he applied to schools. Still, he hadn't entirely forgiven them for the bullet wound in his shoulder and the limp that he was told existed entirely within his mind.

It had been an accident. Of course it had. The funny thing is, though, that when people talked about statistics, it was always how many people were discovered, how many made a difference. It was never the ones that slipped through the cracks, the ones that the system didn't reach out to protect.

John could do with the world he lived in being a little different. In the meantime, though, he didn't change the channel on the television.

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**A/N: This is the beginning of a fill for a prompt on the kinkmeme about mahou-shoujo-type johnlock. I have no idea how long it's going to be, but something tells me it will be a while before I'm done with this story.**

**~Mademise Morte, December 22, 2012.**


	2. Chapter 2

"Are you always this stupid? No, it's not magic, my mind is not _magic_, IQ scores can't be _improved by the gift. _Like they even matter anyway. No, my mind is completely my own work. It's called the _science_ of deduction, not the magic." The boy with the sharp cheekbones and the pale skin rolled his eyes heavenwards, having refused eye contact with the interviewer.

From where he was slouched, in front of the television screen, John Watson was staring at the visage of one Sherlock Holmes.

"What? No, it's deduction, not induction! Where are you getting all this from? Who's that speaking in your ear? They're an idiot, whoever they are!" Impassioned and agitated, Sherlock started gesturing violently. "Induction leaves room for all the wrong answers and now you're going to say _what about mathematical induction_" and then his voice went high and mocking, an octave above where he had spoken so far, "because you've got someone just going through bloody Wikipedia, haven't you? No, no, mathematical induction is based on deductive reasoning and how do you think I would possibly not know the difference?"

The interviewer, a woman called Jennifer Wilson who had pretty blonde hair and shining jewelry and alarmingly pink clothing smiled at Sherlock, leaned forward a little. "Not everyone's a genius before they even discover their magic," she said in what she probably thought was a placating tone, though John was willing to bet, based on the boy's responses, that Sherlock found her voice positively aggravating. "How have you been adjusting to that?"

"The work is still everything," Sherlock said. "You know what it is I do, don't you? They send you in with that much of a script, anyway. I _solve crimes_, not fight monsters or whatever it is you expect of me."

"You could be a hero," Jennifer Wilson said, and Sherlock covered his face with his hands for a moment before meeting her gaze to answer.

"You know you're smarter than this, don't you?" he asked rhetorically. "Heroes don't exist, and if they did, I wouldn't be one."

With that the screen fizzed out and the focus shifted to another interview. John yawned, stretched his arms out widely and glanced at the clock – the channel, with all its switches of perspective and story, made time seem like it was going a lot faster than it was, and John could stay there comfortably for another hour and still wake up in plenty of time for the screening. This knowledge in mind, he redirected his attention to the television.

This time, it was the smiling, earnest face of Jim Moriarty, professional Magical Boy from the age of six.

"I really do wish Carl were here to see it all," he was saying in his high, lilting voice, accent charming as ever, because even at sixteen, he hasn't outgrown the persona, and where John had been impressed by the sheer bloody honesty that had been Sherlock Holmes, he is put off by the display of saccharine that is Jim.

"It was truly a tragedy to see him go," the interviewer was saying, a man in a sober suit.

"It was," Jim said, lowering his head soberly. "I wonder every day why it was him and not another one of us." Because Carl Powers had been a classmate, had had an Incident of his own, and John Watson had heard about it in the time Before and not even thought to expect anything like that himself.

The thought was making his shoulder ache, and so he switched off the television and went to prepare for bed.

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**A/N: I'm quite enjoying this. :)**

**~Mademise Morte, January 15, 2013.**


End file.
